Online report of the Progressive Review. For 53 years, the news while there's still time to do something about it.

July 30, 2017

Europe taking back privatized programs

Portside - In the '80s a neoliberal tide swept across the West with the idea that welfares states had become too expensive and that privatizing public goods was better for stimulating the economy. During this era of fiscal conservatism, Western governments basically confined themselves supervisory roles over the economy, reduced to watchdogs enforcing norms and standards. But research has shown that as the government progressively pulls out of public life, many people lose access or experience the deterioration of services that improve their quality of life such as affordable housing, education, public transportation and health care.

Now, cities across Europe are increasingly deciding to reclaim public services, spearheading a growing movement for "remunicipalization," meaning the return of public services from private to public. According to Sakoto Kishimoto Lead Researcher at the Transnational Institute (TNI) people are over the idea of privatization. "They're telling their citizens that they have to divest and squeeze budgets, but the feedback we're getting is that local populations found public services more efficient and less costly," Kishimoto said in a TNI report.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

What is omitted in the media chatter about tax reduction - almost always presented as a good thing - is that if you reduce taxes, the government cannot provide services, and those services either disappear or are provided by private entities.

Privatized services are always more expensive to the consumer than government services because they always attempt to maximize profit, while government services may be non-profit.

Propaganda favoring tax reduction is therefore usually a con - favoring the exploitation of the people by capitalism over the benefits provided by socialism.

Every comment telling you a good business cliamte and following its prescriptions helps communities is also a lie. There is no correlation between tax rates and economic growth. it is just a scam by the rich to fleece the public.

SAY IT AGAIN, SAM

ABOUT THE EDITOR

The Review is edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington under nine presidents, has edited the Progressive Review and its predecessors since 1964, wrote four books, been published in five anthologies, helped to start six organizations (including the DC Humanities Council, the national Green Party and the DC Statehood Party), was a plaintiff in three successful class action suits, served as a Coast Guard officer, and played in jazz bands for four decades.

ABOUT THE REVIEW

Regularly ahead of the curve, the Review has opposed federal drug policy for over 40 years, was a lonely media voice against the massive freeways planned for Washington, was an early advocate of bikeways and light rail, and helped spur the creation of the DC Statehood Party and the national Green Party,

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In 1971 we published our first article in support of single payer universal health care